Prof Andy Tattersall offers advice to help humans prepare for Space

12 April 2012

Professor Andy Tattersall recently attended the launch of the European ‘roadmap’ for the human exploration of space at the Centre National d’Etude Spatiale in Paris.

This was the culmination of two years work by a group of European experts in life sciences on a project entitled THESEUS - Towards Human Exploration of Space, A European Strategy.

The objective of THESEUS was to develop an integrated strategy for life sciences research in Europe to ensure the continuation of successful European human space exploration; in particular to identify the technological, medical and psychological issues that must be resolved before humans embark successfully on long-duration space missions.

Andy, Director of the School of Natural Sciences and Psychology in the Faculty of Science, was Chair of the Psychology and Human Machine Systems Expert Group on Skill Maintenance. Other THESEUS groups included experts on Space Radiation, Space Medicine, Neurophysiology, Immunology and Habitat Management.

Andy has also been a member of an advisory team for the European Space Agency over the last three years. This particular ‘topical team’ provided advice on human performance issues in long duration space flights (e.g. to Mars).